Robots, Monsters, and a lot of heart and soul and creative design

Rating: 9/10 (8 November 2014)

It was a curious thing being on line for certain Hollywood programmers in summer 2013, mediocre stuff like 2 Guns or White House Down that neither impressed nor offended too much, and then the split in hearing some other folks talking about Pacific Rim and how awful it looked.
Perhaps I came to it with a small chip on the shoulder – this is THE Guillermo mother-flipping del Toro, after all, a man who has created dark, supremely designed imaginations with Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies, and here he is getting to take on stuff he loves in a completely B-movie landscape: gnarly monsters, giant robots, comic-book stakes, and action with some substance. And Pacific Rim, for what it set out to accomplish as a sensational blockbuster, reached its aims for what I wanted. When taken in total, it may not have much more or less action than a Man of Steel, but it is much smarter, or just more creative and skilled and knowing of its audience, in layering out its action set pieces, and even in the broad strokes it takes as, basically, a B-level Saturday matinée flick. Del Toro cares about these characters, or at least tries to, deep down, and can show some of that like with the Asian pilot Mako Maori.
Is any of this deep? I'm still not sure. Does it need to be an artistic meditation on the cancelling of the apocalypse? Maybe another watch or two of five - because there will always be a part of me that can keep a hold on to an inner 13 year old - will bring that into focus. And aside from the monsters-and-robot work, which contains such good sights to behold, weight and depth to the designs, and the know-how to pace the action and to let us see it – in 2D, anyway, I didn't bother with 3D so I can't speak to that experience – there's some just good fun dialog (Charlie Day! Ron Perlman!!) and a sense that, 'Yes, this is a Godzilla experience, but we can still make it EXCITING'. So much of what I wanted this summer and only got in smaller doses (look at the end of the article for a bit on that) was in full-bloom in this production, which had a 190 million budget and the money looked like it was up on the screen, and not just in the CG but in the big sets and technology, and a story told by a Big Kid that would only hope the rest of the audience can genuinely feel like Big Kids if they aren't young already.
In other words, the director accomplished what Michael Bay has, over and over again, failed to do: inspire wonder, and put some basic thought into the process itself, in story and craft, and without a large dollop of cynicism.